The present disclosure pertains to a dye-based inkjet ink and, more particularly, to a dye-based inkjet ink suitable for printing on textile.
Digital printing methods such as inkjet printing are becoming increasingly important for the printing of textiles and offer a number of potential benefits over conventional printing methods such as screen printing. Digital printing eliminates the set up expense associated with screen preparation and can potentially enable cost-effective short run production. Inkjet printing furthermore allows visual effects, like infinite pattern repeat sizes, that cannot be practically achieved with a screen-printing process.
One area of textile printing ideally suited to digital printing is the flag and banner market where short runs are common. However, printing of flags and banners presents unique challenges. For example, ink is printed on one side, but must penetrate the fabric so that the image is equally visible on the back (unprinted) side as on the front (printed) side. In addition, while the ink must travel through the fabric, it must not travel laterally causing blurring and bleeding. This seemingly contradictory set of conditions is not easily achieved. Furthermore, the printed products will typically be displayed in sunny areas and the colorants in the inks are preferably resistant to light fade.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,847,740 discloses an inkjet printing process on nylon cloth. US20050193499 discloses flag and banner printing methods and pretreatment solutions therefor.
Typically disperse dyes are used as colorants in digital inks for printing on polyester fabrics. Selection of specific Colour Index (CI) dyes have varied between ink manufacturers, but have generally been limited to the disperse class of CI dyes.
A need exists for inkjet inks with wide gamut and desirable light-fastness for printing on textile. The present disclosure satisfies this need by providing aqueous inks containing solvent dyes in addition to disperse dyes.